X-Ray of Malware Evasion Techniques: Analysis, Dissection, Cure?

This presentation has been presented at Bsides Sydney (https://bsidessydney.org/)

Malware evasion consists of techniques used by malware to bypass security in place, circumvent automated and static analysis as well as avoiding detection and harden reverse engineering. There is a broad specter of techniques that can be used. In this talk we will review the history of malware evasion techniques, understand the latest trends currently used by threat actors and bolster your security analysis skills by getting more knowledge about evasion mechanisms.

Transcript

4. What are Evasion Techniques? Practical examples and current trends How can you step up on that topic? The power of information sharing
5. All the techniques used by a a software to avoid static, dynamic, automatic and human analysis in order to understand its behavior All the techniques used by malware to avoid and evade security solutions, security configuration as well as human detection to perform malicious action the longer on the infected computer.
6. In Mitre ATT&CK, the Defense Evasion section is the most dominant tactic For attackers, the longer the malware remains undetected the longer they can perform actions For defenders, the sooner the malware is detected the less damage it will cause
8. Anti Security techniques Anti Sandboxing techniques Anti Analyst techniques
9. Infection Vectors Malware Delivery Malware Behavior Actions on Objectives
10. Malicious Doc Obfuscated Macro Powershell Base64 encoded Dropping Emotet
11. Binded with legit Software Fake Metadata
12. Fake Operations to harden reverse engineering and delay sandbox Anti-disassembly with Code Spaghetti
13. Encrypted data related to host sent to multiple C2 Multiple Network Connections not available in the binary
14. 2015 2016 2017 2019 2020 2021 2022 Creation of Unprotect Project First public release at Botconf Creation of the Unprotect POC BlackHat ASIA @DarkCoderSc joined the project Redesign, includes detection rules and code snippets API Engine, statistics
15. Community centric open project dedicated to cataloguing malware evasion techniques Includes detection rules (Yara, Sigma, Capa) and code snippets Extends the Mitre ATTT&CK Defense Evasion Section Share and improve knowledge about evasion mechanisms Propose a detailed classification
20. Malware Evasion Techniques are used by malware to avoid detection and analysis These techniques are highly regarded by threat actors. The Unprotect Project is a database dedicated to it and provide the broadest knowledge about evasion techniques.